Lih: The card I’m most excited to play come rotation is Sanctum of Repression! From playing pauper I’ve fallen in love with Kor Skyfisher and all of its variants, and this one is no slouch, being a perfectly serviceable removal spell that generates card advantage later in the game! I’m particularly thinking about bouncing already proven staples such as Contest Coordinator, new toys like Dawnward Minister, and shining new light on old tools like Alrantan Visionary.

Scribbl: When MOM came around, Battles were a super interesting concept for control decks for me. Play them in a deck full of burn removal, and suddenly your cards that do very little against decks with fewer creatures can be exchanged for value, or even a win con! Unfortunately the Battles of MOM weren't super conducive to that style of gameplay, between their payoffs mostly being one-shot spells that were easier to answer, and the individual cards not really helping that kind of deck archetype all that well. But TWI is chock-full of Battles that both give you continuous value, and come with a consolation prize if you're only able to sink a small amount of damage into them.

There are a bunch of Battles I'm interested in trying out, but the one that catches my eye most is Clash at Mistwrit Vale. Interestingly, this one has its win con mode as its base case, with further abilities helping you take better advantage of the original engine. The nature of Battles wanting to be run alongside removal and tokens that can attack into them without you minding too much if they die works super well with Clash, providing you tokens that you can convert into more attackers or just use to stabilise against the decks that would otherwise prey on you for taking turn 3 off to cast your do-nothing engine. The second stage can even buy back the burn spell you used on it, helping to either defeat it more quickly or to ensure you're not out of pocket for interaction. I think this card would work super nicely in a Jeskai or Grixis control shell.

platypeople: One of my first successful brews in Revolution was a mono-green ramp deck centered around a card called Canopy Culling. Combining cheap creatures that ramped or produced value with expensive haymakers made for a potent combination. When I was combing through Exalts of Twiltrie I was extremely excited to see a worthy replacement in Vow's Reflection. This new enchantment trades the ability to play at instant speed for even more value accrual since you don't have to fully sacrifice material to get the draw. The flash was an excellent bonus for playing well against slower control decks, but more card advantage can do just as good a job at burying opponents. We even still have Totemic Guidestones available in the format for a bit longer if the flash plan looks especially potent, and this synergy was a proven winner back in the single season where Guidestones overlapped with Culling. Catch me in the queues playing lots of Vow's Reflection in the months to come.

AllWhoWander: I am a melvin at heart, and one of the most fun new cards in the incoming set for me has got to be Three Become One. Figuring out the reasoning behind the convoluted and seemingly unconnected requirements for the spell's cost reduction (Oh! I get it! It's a three-component ritual and its caster!) was an utter delight, and did an excellent job of selling me on the flavor of Twiltrie without even a sentence of flavor text. And I've seen some really fun speculation about how to fulfill these requirements with the fewest number of cards possible, or with cards that are already present or existing format staples—but don't let that fool you. 

I'm excited to play Three Become One in control decks even where fulfilling its conditions are challenging or even impossible. Being able to quicken 3-drops allows you to cheat timing restrictions on board wipes, flash in discard spells on your opponent's draw step, keep planeswalkers safe from onboard creatures, or just cleanly and efficiently answer a wide variety of permanents. We've seen this sort of deck be successful before with Get Your Wish (another card you can play in this deck!), and even if you don't have anything incredible to cast with this, 5-mana draw 3 at instant speed is an excellent way to keep your hand full into slower matchups. The card is flavorful and fun; I'm looking forward to jamming Three Become One in a whole bunch of decks that definitely shouldn't have it, and hopefully, some that will really make it shine!

Zangy: The card I'm most excited for this upcoming rotation is Sylvia, the Rewoven Oath.  It's a bit of a cheat to pick a planeswalker, due to how much power tends to be behind these cards.  In a similar vein to the Wandering Emperor or REV's own Iroshi, flash walkers have a lot of power and Sylvia delivers.  Having a lot more amped up abilities compared to either of the prior versions, Sylvia allows for a complete control over the board state on a whim once you hit 6 mana.  In most cases, you are free to cast her and see how to react.  The +2 lets you cast and still hold up your cheaper interaction, the -2 creates instant blockers that can eat most smaller creatures, and then the -4 just lets you reset the board.  Sure, you leave their strongest creature (and your own!) but then you get to untap with a walker, three extra mana, and a bit of life to sand everything off.  Definitely going to try to jam a lot of bant control decks with Sylvia as the top end.

Revolution, August, 2025

August marked the turn of the perennial favorite Brawl grand prix to Revolution. In equal measure, players took the deep roster of Theros: Age of Trax legends for one more spin and began experimenting with the newest brawlers from Kitsuo: Dusk of Time and Errors in the Weft. In addition to the 20 competitors bring 20 different brawlers, there were in fact 16 different color identities represented across all the decklists, spanning from every monocolor deck all the way up to a 5-color shrines build.

Top cut included seven different color combinations with three monocolor decks and four two color decks. In a surprising twist, not a single blue card made it to the playoff despite the reigning brawl champion from last year being a Dimir mill deck. In one corner of the finals match was PTM: the swiss-rounds winner on a monored deck with a 1-mana-value brawler in Efimia of the Horse. Aggressive decks in brawl can often shine in a way they don't get to in commander with a single opponent to beat down and limited interaction quality in those opponent's decks. In the other corner was DrChipmunk: the crusher of this season with a gruul deck based around their set's marquee card The Weftheart. Chipmunk's path to the finals included a thrilling last-chance victory involving a 15-mana Terminal Impact spending Treasures built up dozens of turns prior.

Despite playing a lean, mean 22 lands, PTM's deck produced some unfortunate flooding at the 11th hour that enabled Chipmunk to eke out the match 2-1 and yet another tournament victory. We're not even halfway through the Revolution calendar year and Chipmunk has surely locked up "home field advantage" throughout the upcoming 2026 World Championships. Congratulations to Chipmunk on a completely unprecendented performance, commiserations to PTM, and remember, the best time to join the Revolution is now!

For video coverage of the finals with commentary, we are spoiled for choice; you can see it with DrChipmunk here, or with CovetedPeacock here!